Hangers, labels and tags are items that are used to complete many packages and to provide product information. These items are often adhesively applied. If the items are not placed correctly, the finished appearance is not as attractive as it could be.
As an example of the need to apply such items accurately, in order to encourage "impulse buying," a package must hang and look right. If adhesively applied hangers are not repetitively applied to packages with precise location, display of a set of such packages will be uneven and unattractive.
With many applicator systems, the items to be applied are mounted on a flexible supply strip. These items are removed from the supply strip in order to apply them to a desired package or product. Removing and applying the items by hand is one method but is time consuming and inefficient.
The prior art teaches applicating machines which work in a variety of ways. Many use vacuums to grasp and hold an item to be applied to a package or product. Some of these use rotary drums which have a vacuum source connected to the drum. The drum rotates to grasp an item peeled from a supply strip by moving the strip around a dispensing edge. The drum rotates further to apply the item to the package. Others have the item peeled from a supply strip by moving the strip around a dispensing edge and then grasping it by a vacuum head which then applies it to a package. Some of these machines have the item partially floating on a flow of air prior to the vacuum head grasping the item.
The applicating machines of the prior art do not place the items correctly on the packages or products as consistently as they should. With the machines wherein the item actually floats before it is grasped by the vacuum head, the vacuum head often mislocates the item and sometimes even misses the item entirely and thereby a package fails to receive an item altogether.
Many of the prior machines are limited in the shape of packages or products to which they can apply items. The package's shape must be conducive to the shape of a machine's applicating face. For example, the face should preferably be concave in order to apply an item to a round object such as an apple or an orange. Yet a concave face is hardly conducive to applying an item to a flat box.
It would therefore be desirable to have an applicating machine which consistently applies items to packages or products in an accurate and attractive manner and which is capable of applying items to packages or products of a variety shapes.